Having successfully navigated the deepest puddle encountered on our walk thus far, we continued on south and eventually reached Mengham Rithe. Mengham Rithe sits at the south east corner of Hayling Island. In its time it has seen oyster farming and salt panning and also, it is said, an ill-fated plan to extract gold from seawater. This particular venture happened not to work very well and was abandoned.
Although we weren’t quite back at the coast, the views up Mengham Rithe made us feel very close indeed!
We could feel our walk around Chichester Harbour nearing an end. It had been very pleasant for the most part but there is something special about the coast, the lure of the open sea and distant horizons. We marched on, picking up our pace, skirting around the small holiday village of Selsmore and through some more frustrating stretches of road. Finally, we got to Sandy Point Nature Reserve, right at the southeastern tip of the island. A footpath led through a wooded area; it suddenly started sloped gently upwards and ahead we could see a shingle bank. At last! We were back at the coast!
Can you see that bit of land in the background? That is the beach at West Wittering. We left that stretch of coastline three months, one county and 50 miles ago. Fifty miles! Just to walk around a harbour and get to a patch of land less than a mile away from where we started! Is it any wonder we felt so elated to arrive at the other side and so be able to continue our trek around the coast of Britain?
Points on this part of the walk (copy and paste the co-ordinates into Google Earth):
- Mengham Rithe: N 50° 47.326 W 000° 57.989
- Selsmore Holiday Village: N 50° 46.978 W 000° 57.453
- Back at the Coast: N 50° 46.780 W 000° 56.180
Walk #63 Statistics (of which this post forms the second part):
- Date of Walk: 29 December 2013
- Walk #63 total distance covered: 9.60 miles
- Coast of Britain Walk Total Distance Covered: 526.74 miles
- CLICK HERE FOR LINK TO INTERACTIVE MAP!!!
The Coastal Path 
Gold from sea water? That simple? And when I think of all the years I’ve wasted searching for The Philosopher’s Stone…! RH
Are you taking the ferry to Portsea from Hayling or are you going to walk back to Emsworth?
Hi Martyn –
Definitely the ferry! Ferries are allowed in our book. In fact, we ended this walk 1 miles away from the ferry. At the beginning of the next walk we walked that mile to the ferry only to find that it was damaged in the storms and was not operating. That was rather a long journey down to the coast for us just to find that out, though we used the time wisely and went up the Spinnaker Tower.
We were hoping to make the crossing this weekend just gone but the ferry was still out of action. As of yesterday it was back in service, I believe…
Nic